Sonar, Barcelona (15-17th June)
Urban Tapestries and Social Tapestries have recently been part of the Sonar Festival in Barcelona, in the exhibition, Always On.
Generalized Empowerment, London (18-23rd June)
We also participated in Generalized Empowerment, a conference and exhibition organised by London/Brussels/Barcelona collective Citymine(d). The exhibition continues at Village Underground, 54 Holywell Lane EC2 until Friday (open 2-6pm).
Digital Hub, Dublin (26th June)
Urban Tapestries/Social Tapestries has also been selected to form part of the evolving visitor exhibition at Digital Hub's new building (formerly Media Lab Europe) in Dublin.
Futuresonic, Manchester (21st July)
We will be demonstrating the public authoring Feral Robots at Futuresonic in Manchester on Friday July 21st at the Museum of Science and Technology.
Conferences
Over the next few months we will be participating in several conferences and symposia:
• Feral Robots Paper & Presentation at IEE International Conference on Intelligent Environments in Athens, Greece, 6th July
• Feral Robots Paper & Presentation at UK-UbiNet Workshop, Imperial College London, 12th July
• Social Tapestries Paper on "Public Authoring Across the Digital Divide" and a Sensory Threads/Feral Robots workshop at the Society of Cartographers Annual Symposium, Keele University, 6th September
• A Feral Robots Video has been submitted for UbiComp 2006, 17-21st September
We are pleased to announce the first in a series of Cultural Snapshots by intern Megan Conway, looking at how Social Tapestries connects with recent education policy. Megan is currently completing an MPhil in Politics, Democracy and Education at the University of Cambridge.
You can download it as a PDF here.
Last Saturday we spent the afternoon with HIRO on the Havelock estate interviewing locals about their experiences of living there – the things they were positive about and the problems they face. The aim of the interviews is to produce a DVD of 'Havelock Voices' that presents a range of different people's stories and experiences. This can then be the touchstone for locals to record their own stories using the media resources (digital video camera, digital editing software etc) that are available at HIRO (including an iMac and WiFi Meshbox loaned by Proboscis). One avenue we're exploring for Havelock in particular is place-based audio streaming from Urban Tapestries that can be broadcast locally using AM or low-power FM. We think this way we might begin to address the key question of how people who are not part of the digital revolution can still be part of the knowledge mapping and sharing it envisages. Not everybody has a computer or internet access, but almost everyone has a radio.
Based on the interviews and the past year of discussions with residents we've also created two StoryCubes which aim to put the issues into the palm of people's hands and stimulate further discussion of their own experiences. We are planning a workshop this summer to encourage residents to make their own cubes with images of the good things about Havelock and the problems they face. By building up a set of StoryCubes made by different people, we hope we can start to connect many more of the stories and challenges experienced by residents, which can then become a trigger for mapping them using Urban Tapestries.
Proboscis will publish two bookworks at the end of June:
Social Tapestries An Atlas of Enquiry
The atlas contains five maps which trace the territories and unfolding outcomes of Social Tapestries, an investigation of public authoring in civil society and the emergence of a public knowledge commons. Published in a limited edition of 1000. The maps are:
– Public Authoring, Education & Learning
– Urban Tapestries public authoring in the wireless city
– Neighbourhoods & Communities
– Urban Tapestries version 2
– Robotic Feral Public Authoring
Update: An Atlas of Enquiry can be ordered here at £5 plus post and packing.
Social Tapestries A Case of Perspectives
A limited signed and numbered box edition of 200 containing a set of Tapestry Cards, a Social Tapestries StoryCube and the Atlas of Enquiry. The 63 Tapestry Cards (3 sets of 21) make up a tactile embodiment of the myriad stories, fragments and processes of Urban Tapestries. At the heart of these are a Myriorama or, Endless Landscape, of 21 paintings. This is a device for storytelling that can be used by individuals or groups, each card extending, embellishing or forking a narrative flow. The 21 cards depict fragments of a panorama that can be arranged in thousands of combinations yet still create a continuous landscape. The reverse of the 63 Tapestry Cards fit together to form a map of London overlaid with pockets and threads from Urban Tapestries.
The StoryCube creates a shift in the perception of scale, making tangible and tactile the abstract and complex concepts of public authoring into something that you can hold in the palm of your hand. Its six faces visualise some of the key concepts of public authoring.
We will be posting details on how to order the Case (£65 plus post & packing) in the next week or two.
